Let me mend your heart
by Jean Phoenix Soul
Summary: After Harry leaves for Hogwarts TOOTF, Tonks and Lupin begin spending a lot of time together and discover they understand and complement each other in a unique, special way, but will his low self-esteem and lack of confidence sabotage their relationship


Lupin and Tonks arrived at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix really late that evening. They had been out all night working on an assignment, but their effort had been fruitless. The subject they had been following for days had just disappointed them again. Had he occupied a less important position within the Ministry, nobody would have cared about him, of course. Still, the Order suspected the Unspeakable was an active Death Eater working under cover at the department of Mysteries, which made him a potential threat to their cause. However, they had found no evidence to confirm that theory so far, so the man must have been one of the two: innocent or really careful. Either way, it was their job to find out which was the case.

"I'm as clueless as you are, Remus," Tonks whispered as she tiptoed into the house, trying to avoid waking up Mrs Black's portrait. "and—"

"Watch the umbrella stand!" he warned her just in time for her to dodge the ugly decoration.

"Thank you," she said apologetically. "If I wake Mrs. Black in the middle of the night again, Molly will surely turn me into an umbrella stand myself this time."

He smiled at her joke. "Let's go to the lounge, then," Lupin suggested calmly as he hung his cloak with the others. "We don't want Sirius accidentally throwing you away with the rest of the chattels."

Tonks chuckled and followed him through the long hallway and into the lounge without bothering to take off her cloak. He sat on a sofa and she occupied the old couch in front of him.

"So, what do you reckon is the next step to follow, from an Auror's point of view?"

"I don't know…" she said with a yawn. "This case has me absolutely baffled," Lupin nodded, a worrying line on his forehead, "and I can barely keep myself awake right now. Between the Order and the Ministry I haven't slept in over thirty hours."

"Well, you need to get some rest if you want to be able to contribute to either cause, don't you think?" he asked kindly.

"I know," Tonks said a little demoralized, biting her lower lip and looking at her feet for a moment. She knew she had been pushing herself too hard, but there were too many things to do and only a few people to do them. It was easy to get tempted and accept more tasks than one could handle.

"There's…" he began nervously, but then decided to start over, making an effort to sound confident and calm this time. "There's a spare room in the third floor. Why don't you go up there and try to get some sleep?" suggested quietly, pretending to be examining a painting to look away from her. "We can think about Henson in the morning, before you leave for the Ministry."

"That sounds heavenly," she admitted, as the mere idea of a bed made her feel better, "but I'm afraid I can't. As much as I'd like to save myself the trouble of walking out of the safe zone and apparating home, I can't worry my parents not showing up tonight. They worry enough with me being an Auror."

Lupin fought to hide his disappointment. He knew it was stupid for someone to feel closer to another person just because they were sleeping under the same roof, especially when many other people lived there too and yet, he couldn't help his feelings. Tonks noticed his reaction and felt a little guilty about not staying over. After all, she knew that despite Sirius and the rest living there, he often felt lonely, and had come to realize that he thought so poorly of himself, he usually imagined being more secluded than he really was.

After all the months spent working together for the resistance, she could easily tell what was on his mind by just looking at him, and the fact that Remus still talked to her normally, meant he had no idea she had him completely figured out.

People often labelled Lupin as a reserved person and attributed all his sighs, frowns and silences to his shyness, but she knew better. She was well aware that, despite appearing to be a quiet man, he had an entire universe of emotions, thoughts and opinions bottled up inside.

Tonks had gotten to know Lupin really well, for they were often paired up together for the Order's field missions and made a great team. They talked a lot, complemented each other mentally, and had an excellent magical feedback. That made him a person she truly enjoyed to spend time with, but what really attracted her about him was the fact that he seemed to have entirely given up on himself. As the lively woman she was, Tonks had always had a weakness for lost causes, and Lupin was the most desolated man she had ever met.

"You're right. It was a terrible ide—"

"On the other hand," she interrupted him, "I could just let them know that I'm staying here tonight," decided with a warm smile that he found contagious.

"I'll do it," offered Lupin, his eyes softly lighting up like a child's. Tonks looked at him for a moment, trying to meet his gaze, but he was looking at the portrait again, so she gave up and looked away too. A second later, she felt his eyes on her face once more. "I'll send them a message through the portrait of your great-uncle letting them know you're too tired to get there."

Tonks frowned for a moment. The idea of him having to notify her mother as if she were his student made her uncomfortable, as did all the things that highlighted the age difference between them. However, she was too tired to complain and ended up just nodding in agreement.

Lupin stood up and walked to the picture hanging on the wall right behind Tonks, but she didn't turn around, since she knew the painting by heart. It was part of a set of three portraits of her great-aunt Alphard Black. Her parents used to keep them at their living room. A few months earlier, however, her mother Andromeda donated one of the paintings to the Order in case Tonks was needed at the headquarters.

"It's done," announced Lupin a couple of minutes later, when he finished talking to her ancestor's portrait. "Now you can go upstairs and... Tonks?" he asked when she didn't answer.

Lupin walked around the couch and found her fast asleep in what seemed like a really uncomfortable position. Finding her like that made him chuckle at first, but then he realized she would get a neck ache and drew out his wand. Using a spell to levitate her a little, he slowly settled her across the couch in a better, more natural position. A thick green blanket appeared out of thin air and covered her in response to a movement of his wand.

He stood there for a moment looking at her sleeping face. A warm feeling suddenly filled his chest. He knew she was not as attractive as other women, but he still found her beautiful. It was not because she was nice to him and treated him like an equal, as if he weren't a penniless werewolf. With her bubblegum pink hair back to her natural colour and her face relaxed and calm, she looked just the way he had imagined her: unattainable. Lupin sighed and decided it was time to go back to his room.

He jumped out of the sofa in the morning, when the sound of a door opening startled him. It took him a moment to realize he was still in the lounge. The idea made him feel ashamed of himself; although he knew he hadn't done anything wrong.

Sirius stood at the threshold with a conspiratorial grin on his face, which didn't make him feel any better about the situation. For someone known by his strict self control, he had shown a considerable lack of it the night before. He had barely slept a couple of hours, but having had the chance to look at her sleep was definitely worth it.

"We were discussing Henson," he excused himself right away. "The man seems to be innocent, but there's something out of place… something just doesn't fit—"

"Does Andromeda know she's here?" asked Sirius, still grinning at him in a way he found a little intimidating.

"Of course she does! We were just—"

"Hmm… what time is it?" asked Tonks, who had just woken up and was sitting on the couch rubbing her eyes sleepily.

"Four thirty," answered Sirius.

"So early…" complained Tonks with a yawn.

"What are you doing in the lounge at four thirty in the morning?" asked Lupin with a frown.

Sirius shook the book he was holding, which his friend had failed to see before that moment. "Kreacher woke me up when he tried to steal an old locker from my room and I can't go back to sleep."

"Great," said Tonks, "then you can help us figure out what to do with Henson."

Sirius seemed happy with the idea of finally being able to help the Order in some way, and sat next to Tonks, whose hair was back to its usual spiky shape and odd colour.

"The man is an Unspeakable and Dumbledore thinks he might be helping the Death Eaters," explained Lupin, who was sitting on the sofa in front of them.

"So?" asked Sirius, who hadn't been following the case, although they often discussed it after dinner until late at night. "You have been following him, right?" they both nodded. "Then it's easy: if he goes home after work and spends time with his family, he's a normal wizard; if he, on the other hand, meets with Death Eaters in a secluded alley and starts illegally experimenting on muggles—"

"Oh, please be serious!" complained Lupin.

"I am Sirius!" replied his friend with a huge grin that made his cousin giggle.

Lupin was about to complain again when Tonks interrupted him: "Wait! He might be right! I have an idea…"

Both men looked incredulously at her, as neither of them expected the joke to be of any use.

"We have followed Henson for almost two weeks now. He's a widower with a really sad life. He goes to work in the morning, stays at the Ministry for most of the day and after that, he goes to a muggle hospital nearby until it's time to go home. Then, he sits at his kitchen table —he has no Fidelio charm on his house— and eats dinner alone before going to bed," said Tonks enthusiastically. They looked at her puzzled, clearly not following her line of thought.

"That's right, but what does it have to do with what Sirius said?"

"Well… this might sound a little far fetched, but please hear me out and then tell me it doesn't sort of make sense." They both nodded in agreement. "He's a widower who has no family and no friends and still spends all of his free time in a hospital where the staff and security personnel can't even recognize his picture."

"Maybe he just made a new friend who got injured and it's coming to visit," suggested Sirius.

"No. He has no friends. We double checked it," said Lupin, "and it he were there doing charity his name would be on the records or at least the staff would be able to identify him."

"And what was he suspected of being a Death Eater for?" she asked with a huge grin.

"The improper use of magic on muggles and the possible creation of one or more Inferus…" said Lupin still trying to understand where she was going.

"Exactly!" said Tonks, still excited. "Now, what if —and this is a huge if, but—, what if he is not a Death Eater, but just a depressed husband who still loves his wife so much, he doesn't care about the ban and is willing to experiment with the forbidden to have her back?"

"Are you saying he's trying to resurrect her?" asked Sirius incredulous. "Don't be ridiculous, Tonks! Everybody knows that's impossible!" He turned to Lupin for support, but he seemed to be seriously considering the possibility.

"Well, that would explain his association with Inferi," said Lupin thoughtfully, "and also the improper use of magic on muggles. It's a really good theory and it makes more sense the more I think about it."

"That's what I think," said Tonks proudly, happy to see Remus approved of her. "Maybe he sneaks into the morgue to experiment with the corpses, and had to modify a muggle's memory after getting discovered by him."

"Now that you put it like that it sort of makes sense," admitted Sirius. "´Perhaps he managed to create an Inferus while trying to reanimate the bodies."

"We still need to prove it, of course, but it's a great place to start," said Lupin, whose eyes gave away the enthusiasm he really felt about finding a possible solution the case. Despite it not being there, the two people in front of him knew Remus well enough to see the excitement smile that should have been in his face, were he a little less repressed.

That night, Lupin waited for Tonks at the usual place, a deserted muggle alley a couple of blocks away from the Ministry. Everything had been quite ordinary so far. He had followed Henson out of the Ministry as usual, the man had walked into the nearby hospital and hadn't left the building yet. He could see the hospital door from the alley. However, Tonks was running late and that was a novelty.

She arrived a few minutes later, wearing an inconspicuous muggle dress and a discreet black coat. Her hair was long and mousy brown, in a fashion that wouldn't draw any unnecessary attention.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Tonks apologized. "Scrimgeour wanted to talk to me again and made me stay after my shift was over," she added rolling her eyes.

"Was he asking you funny questions again?" asked Lupin, trying to disguise his concern.

"Merlin's beard, no!" she made a disgusted face at the idea and he smiled lightly at her expressiveness. "Luckily for me, I'm not the one he's been harassing lately, though I'm afraid poor Kingsly can't say the same thing," added with a sympathetic smile. "He suggested I should stop 'wearing such an indecent hair colour to work' if I wanted to make progresses career-wise," explained her making another annoyed face.

"Oh, so that's why…" he said making a brief motion towards her hair.

"What? This?" asked Tonks grabbing a lock of her brown hair in her hand. He nodded. "No." She seemed to find his assumption funny. "I don't intend to become the next Ministry for Magic and there's no dressing code to forbid me from wearing my hair whatever colour I prefer," she said with a shrug, "but we need to get into that hospital without scandalizing too many muggles."

"Are you serious? You should see the things this people do to their face and hair."

"Really? Like what?"

"Well, like wearing earrings on the most unbelievable places, for example."

"Oh, you mean piercings? I've been through that phase," she admitted with an amused smile. "They definitely are bound to raise many eyebrows."

Lupin looked at her with evident curiosity but he didn't dare to ask and eventually looked away, as if he were checking on the hospital door to see if Henson came out.

"So, aren't you changing?" asked Tonks a few moments later.

"Me?" he seemed surprised when she appraised him from top to bottom. "What's wrong with my clothes? Aren't they muggle enough?"

She blinked. According to muggle standards, his overly mended wizard clothes looked like a beggar's, but she didn't have the heart to tell him so.

"Well, we need a convincing disguise if we are to enter the morgue," she said merrily making a small motion with her hands and casting a non-verbal transfiguration spell. A moment later, his clothes changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt with a lab coat on top, the kind doctors use. "Shall we, doctor Lapis?" she asked with a grin, internally congratulating herself on the way she managed to avoid tricky subjects.

He took a look at his disguise and made a face, clearly uncomfortable with what he saw. "What if they start asking questions?"

"We improvise? I don't know, but there goes Henson. Let's move."

They walked out of the alley and crossed the street with a lot of muggles who were going home after a long day of work. Entering the hospital was easier than they had thought. The security team nodded to him as they passed by but nobody talked to them, since it was the first time either of them was there.

"All right, now what?" asked Lupin once they were in the staff area.

The corridor was deserted, but a few nurses were discussing breast enhancement surgery at a tiny nearby room. Tonks looked both ways, trying to find any sign that could point them in the right direction, but there was none.

"Let me think," she asked, her voice betraying her nervousness a little. That didn't make him feel any more confident, but he remained silent anyway. "I think we should look for an elongated elevator," she suggested after a little thinking. "They move corpses in trolleys and can't use magic, so they probably need a wide elevator to take the bodies to the morgue."

"Good thinking!" Lupin congratulated her. "I believe we passed one of those on our way here."

"Which way was it?" she looked around, trying to remember which way they had come in.

"I think it was this way."

Tonks followed him through the corridor until it became a three-way. She looked at him inquisitively, but a tall blonde man stopped next to them before he could say anything.

"Doctor Lapis!" exclaimed the man who had just read the name embroidered on the upper pocket of his lab coat. "You must be Doctor Richards' replacement," he assumed. "It's a pleasure to meet you," the man said without waiting for an answer. "I'm Doctor Hinds."

"Richard Lapis. The pleasure is all mine," Lupin answered, shaking Hind's hand. The muggle then turned to Tonks, probably expecting to be introduced. "Oh, this is my…" he said throwing a desperate glance in Tonks' direction, "wife Dora. We're… having dinner with some friends and she has come to pick me up," Lupin put his hand into his pocket as he improvised, to avoid questions about not wearing a wedding ring. The last thing they needed was an uncomfortable religious debate with a muggle.

"Oh, she's your wife! She's so young I would have sworn she was one of our intern students. Silly me! She's not wearing any scrubs!" he said giving himself a little tap on the forehead with his hand.

"I know! I get that all the time!" Tonks tried to sound as enthusiastic as he did, although her heart was racing. "They think I'm twenty three. Imagine that!" the man laughed with her and Lupin joined them with a rather forced laugh. "By the way, it's nice to meet you, Doctor," she said smiling and shaking his hand as charmingly as she could, trying to focus the man's attention on her, so he wouldn't notice just how nervous her alleged husband was.

"It's nice to meet you too, Mrs Lapin," the man said before turning to him again.

"Well, I suppose I won't steal any more of your time. I would hate myself if you were late for your dinner party for talking to me."

"Uh, Doctor Hinds," Lupin called him, earning a horrified look from Tonks.

"Yes?

"Could you point us to the morgue? I need to pick up an autopsy report before we leave."

"Taking your work home?" Lupin nodded. "I'm that kind of man too," the doctor said with a huge smile. "It's in the basement. Take the elevator at the end of this corridor. It's the last door to the left," he explained.

"Thanks a lot," Tonks and Lupin said at the same time.

"You really are a cute couple," Hinds said before he left through one of the corridors.

"Well done! Asking him about the morgue was brilliant!" Tonks said once she was sure the doctor wouldn't hear them. She concentrated on the less embarrassing part of the conversation, convinced that he would be thankful for that.

"Are you serious? We almost got caught!" he complained as they walked to the elevator, too proud to admit it was nice to have an adrenaline rush that didn't involve Death Eaters for a change. For a brief moment, their little adventure reminded him of his days with the Marauders, when James, Sirius and him would sneak out of the castle to have some fun. The idea was immediately suppressed from his mind, but he couldn't remove it completely.

"Oh, come on, Remus!" Tonks said as soon as the elevator door closed. "Did you see the way he was laughing? He was not even suspicious!"

"Maybe, but I was about to go with 'student'…" he explained.

She used all her willpower to prevent the disappointment showing on her face and, after failing miserably, looked away from him. "I could have finished my shift and ran into you. All I had to do was complain about having to change in that a locker room," she tried to reassure him despite feeling a little mad. "I did bring a huge handbag, after all. It would have been plausible."

"I don't know. You're the one who's been trained to do characterizations. I'm not used to lie my way through a muggle hospital."

"Mind you, neither am I," she said giving him a slightly dirty look, "but I couldn't think of any other way to get to the morgue without magic."

"You're right. I'm sorry," Lupin apologized when he realized he had been taking his frustration on her. "I didn't mean to insult you."

"I know. Don't worry," she told him a couple of moments later, deciding to let it go. She didn't want to argue in the morgue and risk getting discovered.

"I just keep thinking that if we get caught you could lose your job," he said mortified. The argument was so sweet that she decided to forgive him. They disagreed often, but it was impossible for her to stay mad at him when he was so thoughtful and considerate.

"Well, yeah, but that's an upgrade, don't you think?" she said with a smirk. "In this line of work it's usually your own life you bargain with."

"That's true," he admitted grimly, as he got off the elevator and walked silently for a while, thinking about what she had just said. Constantly worried about her age, he often forgot how brave she must have been to choose such a dangerous and possibly deadly job, especially in those dark times. Joining the Order instead of believing the lies the Ministry told about Dumbledore also denoted her superiority, since even older and more experienced people fell for the Ministry's lies. Then, didn't that made her his equal despite the age difference? Mentally, she obviously was, but was that enough for his conscience, for society?

"Remus?" she called him. "Are you even listening to me?"

"What? No. Sorry," he admitted with a weary expression and entered the morgue after her. The smell was strong, disgusting and really distracting.

"Could you stop worrying and help me, please?" she asked with a smile.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked raising a hand to his mouth and nose in an attempt to prevent the smell from getting to him.

"Well, we need to find evidence that this man is experimenting on this corpses," she said walking around the morgue, looking everywhere without knowing what she was looking for, "but I don't know where to start." Usually, I'd perform the magic check on the bodies, but since I can't use magic myself…"

"You can't use aparecium incantatem on them, right," he finished the sentence for her. She nodded. "Then that means he can't use magic here either. He already got in trouble with the Ministry for improper use of magic on muggles, and I don't think he would be willing to make the same mistake twice, no matter how much he must want to bring his wife back." Lupin tried to keep his mind on the subject to forget where he was.

"I agree, but where does that leaves us? Potions?" she asked confused.

"I'm afraid so. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to detect that without using magic."

"I do, but I don't have my revealing stone on me tonight. I forgot to…" she stopped talking when she noticed the way the place was affecting Lupin. As an Auror, she had been trained to deal with death and bodies as a part of her training against dark arts, and had gotten so used to them she often forgot that the smell and the very concept of dead bodies tended to bother other people. "Oh… I'm sorry. Come here." Tonks said as she approached Lupin. She met his gaze for a moment, as if asking for permission and then slowly placed her hand over his nose and mouth. He flinched a little under her touch, for he didn't see it coming. A moment later, a strange bubble appeared over the area Tonks' hand had just covered.

"There," she said with a satisfied smile. "I hope you like peppermint," added before going back to work. He stood there, motionless, staring at her in astonishment. Except for the marauders, no other people had ever dared to touch him so unworriedly, let alone a woman.

While Lupin attempted to sort out his feelings, Tonks examined the drain of the sinks near the autopsy tables, the three corpses on the trolleys that were in a corner and the autopsy reports on the corner's desk, hoping to find evidence of anything strange that might have happened there. A little frustrated, she turned to the huge refrigerator where the niches were and randomly opened a couple of them, like she was looking for a quill among her desk drawers. Finally, she sighed and turned to Lupin, who was still standing where she had left him.

"Any luck?"

"Not really," he replied coming back to reality. She made a resigned grimace and prepared to leave, but then turned around and listened sharply.

"Wait. Something moved over there," Tonks said walking to the bodies in the corner. One of them was slightly moving. She walked closer and removed the blanket that covered it. Lupin took a few steps to get a better view.

One of the dead man's legs was twitching. A moment later, a muscle on his arm started moving and then another one on his face. The looked in awe as the corpse started to twitch all over and then began to spasm like a man having a convulsion. For a second, Tonks thought that the man had been wrongly assumed dead, but then she noticed the Y incision on his chest and backed off a couple of steps, running into Lupin, who was standing behind her. She mumbled an apology but didn't turn around, since she couldn't take her eyes from the corpse.

Suddenly, the dead man sat on the trolley and looked at them with empty eyes before throwing up a green gooey substance that smelled strongly like silverweed leaves. Tonks and Lupin intinctively drew out their wands but, a moment later, the body lied down inert again, as if nothing had ever happened to him.

"By Merlin's beard!" she exclaimed after she recovered from the shock.

"That's definitely something you don't see everyday," he admitted.

She knelt on the floor to examine the substance closely and he covered her back, with his wand still pointed at the body.

"Yep, this definitely has silverweed in it," she announced wrinkling her nose at the smell. "The man's innocent. Silverweed is a medicinal herb used in potions to cure stomach pain and regenerate necrotized stomach tissue. Henson's probably just trying to bring his wife back to life," concluded standing up again.

"I guess it is good news," Lupin said in a tone that would have led anyone to believe that they weren't. The truth was he enjoyed her company and didn't want that assignment to be over. Then, she would pair up with somebody else and he'd be left with his lycanthropy to endure that month's transformation. "Dumbledore will be happy to hear it."

The partially disguised sadness in his voice broke her heart, but she was unable to guess the real reason behind it.

A couple of nights later, Sirius was going up the stairs to feed Buckbeak when he heard a noise coming from the third floor. A little more curious than paranoid, he decided to check it out and hurried upstairs, only to find his cousin Tonks standing in front of Lupin's bedroom with a tray of food.

"I wouldn't go there if I were you," he told her with an amused grin. His voice startled Tonks, who almost let the food fall from the tray and managed to keep everything in place by pure chance. "It's full moon tonight," he explained. She was well aware of that fact, since she had been the one who had brought him the wolfbane potion Snape had brewed for him. "He'll be furious if you go in. Remus doesn't like to be seen like this," he explained.

"I'll take my chances," She replied stubbornly. His grin widened. Sirius knew she would say that, but teasing her was one of the few funny things he was allowed to do lately and he wouldn't let the opportunity go to waste. "I think it's inhuman that no one brings him food when he's going through—"

"He prefers it this way," Sirius interrupted her, "but if you don't believe me go ahead, give it a try."

"I will," she said defiantly, despite feeling that all her confidence had crawled away from her like a mouse from a snake. Her cousin realized that and knew that his job there was done and was ready to leave.

"Good luck!" he sang in a childish moking tone as he disappeared through the stairs.

Tonks sighed nervously and took a deep breathe to gather up the last remains of her confidence before knocking on the door. A deep growl answered from the inside, but she decided to ignore it and walked in anyway. After all, he had drank his potion and was harmless, right?

The lights were out. She looked inside the room and didn't find him at first but then she noticed a dark furry shape near the window. The werewolf was much bigger than she had imagined and seemed to be looking at the moon through the window.

"Hi Remus…" she greeted nervously. It wasn't the way he looked what frightened her to the point of shaking, but the possibility that he might get mat at her like Sirius had predicted. "I… I thought you would be hungry…" explained Tonks as she left the tray on the floor between them. "Sirius said you prefer it this way, but I think that no matter what, it's always nicer to go to bed without an empty stomach…" she continued talking despite the fact that he was openly ignoring her. "Please don't get mad at me!" she begged plaintively. He continued to watch the moon as if he hadn't heard her, secretly hoping that if he ignored her long enough she would leave.

"Fine, you're mad at me. I get it," she said after a while, looking discouraged as she sat on the floor. "I just thought you would get bored sitting here by yourself all night without being able to talk to people or even read a book…" she shrugged, her gaze fixed on the food tray between them. "I imagined that after so many years you would get lonely and appreciate some company for a change…"

At that point, the huge wolf-like animal that was Lupin turned its head from the window to look at Tonks. She raised her eyes when he moved, to see if he had forgiven her. Unlike his human form, who only dared to look at her for brief periods of time, Tonks discovered that the werewolf stared at her intently, as if he were analyzing her. His yellow pupils glowed in the dark like those of a cat. She held his gaze with curiosity, trying to guess what he was thinking.

They stayed like that for a while, studying each other in silence. He searched her face looking for a sign of pity or compassion, almost begging to find a reason to get mad at her. He found none. She didn't seem to look at him like some weird zoo animal either. It was just Tonks, willing to spend some of her time with him, for some reason Lupin couldn't understand.

"Hi Remus!" Tonks greeted him again, but this time she was smiling warmly. "It's nice to see you again," she said sincerely. "I hope you had a good week-end. I talked to Dumbledore about Henson and he was happy to know he's not working for the enemy. He thinks we did a great job following his lead to the hospital and…" she continued to talk for hours, speaking to him naturally, as if they were having a normal conversation. Tonks told him the details of her day at the Ministry, and her weekend, which she had spent helping the order. She also talked about her mother, the way she decorated the house, the argument Sirius and Snape had had earlier that day and many other things.

Going on and on about whatever came to her mind, Tonks was tireless as a radio,. That would have probably annoyed anybody else. Lupin, however, liked that about her. She always had something interesting to say and endless stories about her job, that would have even made him laugh if he could have done so.

He tried to remember when the last time he had had so much fun had been, but he couldn't. It would have meant to go as far back as his student days at Hogwarts and he preferred to just enjoy the time being for once. The best part was that she seemed to be having a blast too, not just entertaining him out of pity.

Around three in the morning, Lupin yawned despite himself. It was the hour where he started yawning like a maniac but, if he managed to cross that threshold, he could then stay awake for another day without much trouble. Tonks didn't know that and so, she clumsily stood up, ready to leave.

"I guess I'm going to leave now," she announced to his disappointed, making him wish he had not yawned in front of her when he wasn't able to ask her to stay (not that he would have the courage to do so, but…) "You must be tired after being up and about all day and then the transformation… they say the first night of the cycle is the worst..." Tonks said nervously, as her fears that he might get mad at her returned. "You should have told me to leave earlier… Oh, right, you can't talk!" she remembered. "I'm sorry! It seems every time I open my mouth to take out the foot I end up replacing it with the other…" Tonks apologized feeling really stupid, then looked at him and saw him do a face. She had never seen a dog smile before but in that moment, she could have sworn Lupin was smiling at her. The idea made her chuckle, since it was impossible for a wolf to smile.

Tonks picked up the empty tray and headed for the door, when the old clock Lupin had repaired a couple of months before began to chime. One, two, three times the sound echoed through the old house. "Oh, my! It's three in the morning already!" she exclaimed. Lupin nodded, surprising her even further. "Oh, I'm really sorry, Remus. You must hate me right now for keeping you up so late," she apologized again. He was surprised to hear she was concerned about him instead of the fact that she had to go to work in just a few hours. "I'll let you rest now," she told him by the door, turning to look at him one last time. "Thanks for letting me stay with you tonight. I had a good time," she confessed before she left for that spare room in the third floor.

"Tonks!" Sirius called from behind his cousin, startling her.

"Sirius!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"I never thought you would be a dirty stop-out, cousin!" he told her with a grin. "Shame on you!"

Her face turned pink, white and then red before she could answer.

"Sirius, that's preposterous!" she complained. "I'm not…! We haven't…! I just came to bring him some food!"

"At three o'clock in the morning?" asked him, still grinning widely.

"We stayed up talking," was her excuse.

"You stayed up talking?" he asked. Tonks nodded. "With a fully transformed werewolf?" She stopped answering, uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. "Are you aware of how mental that sounds?" he asked in an amused tone.

Tonks let out an exhausted sigh and massaged the bridge of her nose for a moment, a habit she might have picked from Lupin without realizing it. "Look, Sirius, I'd love to stay up all night playing intellectual ping pong wi-with you," she said with a huge yawn, "but I have to work in the morning."

"In that case you shouldn't have stayed—"

"Good night, Sirius," she said walking away in the middle of his sentence.

The following morning, Tonks was about to leave for the Ministry when Lupin approached her right before she opened the door. He looked more cheerful than usual and even sleepier than she was.

"Morning Tonks," he greeted her

"Oh, morning Remus," she replied, still undecided about feeling awkward or not. On the bright side, he didn't seem mad at all. "I thought you'd be asleep. Has Dumbledore sent you on a mission?"

"No. Actually, I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh" Tonks said, unable to hide her fear. She had expected him to be asleep so she could have a couple of days to think about what to tell him when they finally had a chance to talk. He noticed her reaction, which was completely understandable given what Sirius had told her the night before. His lycanthropy enhanced hearing had allowed him to overhear their conversation.

"I just wanted to thank you," he said with a warm, eloquent smile he hoped would transmit all the things he couldn't say. There was so much he was grateful for, Lupin wouldn't have known where to start.

Tonks mirrored his smile and shooed an invisible fly with her hand. "You don't need to," she assured him. "I had fun."

He nodded. His self-loathing instinct tried to make him drive her away to protect Tonks from getting involved with someone like him but, for once, he didn't give in to it.

"Would you… like me to stop by tonight?" she said in a rush, as if talking faster would make her less embarrassed of what she was saying. "I could bring a book."

"I thought you might want to get some sleep…"

"Oh, well, in that case—"

"But you are welcome if you really want to…"

In that moment, Arthur came through the corridor, ready to go to work. "Good morning Remus, Tonks," he greeted them with a smile. "Are you ready to go? I'll leave in five," he announced, turning to Tonks.

"Oh, you go first, Arthur. I can wait another five minutes," she assured him.

"Well, all right, then. See you later!" he said before disappearing out of the house.

As soon as Arthur was gone, Tonks turned to Lupin again, a little calmer than before, although she could still feel a bunch of butterflies flying in her stomach.

"I'll be there tonight after dinner, then," she promised.

"Do your parents agree with this?" he asked concerned. Tonks swallowed hard. She wasn't sure about what 'this' meant, but she surely didn't like the idea of him asking. She was old enough to decide whom to spend time with and she really doubted her parents would object to him being a werewolf. His age, of course, was a whole different matter, but she tried not to think about it.

"They don't mind me crashing here," Tonks said as carefree as she could, hoping that would be enough. He nodded. "I better leave now, or I'm going to be late."

"Have a good day," he wished her before she left, leaving him alone with too many things to feel guilty about.

Author's notes: When I first read the last three Harry Potter books, I barely paid any attention to Tonks until she got close to whom I've always referred to as "MY Lupin". Then, I started to hate her and called her a whole world of offensive names until I realized (last week) that she was A LOT like my Harry Potter RPG character "Lizzy" (A young, rebellious Auror who's easy to get along with, makes funny things to her hair and has a husband with a really low self-esteem).

The funny part is, I didn't even remember what Tonks looked like or acted like because I never cared much for her so the idea for the character must have come from the deepest, darkest corner of my subconscious mind.

After realizing they were so much alike, I made peace with her and started reading the three last books again with a fresh new pair of eyes and I realized I really liked her a lot.

In fact, she turned out to be one of my favourite characters in the saga (because she's so much like my beloved Lizzy and because I realized she made MY Lupin happy, and that's something I could have never done (for obvious reasons)).

Now that I think of it, she also looks a lot like Lyorna, my other character who, by the way, existed waaay before Tonks. They're both hufflepuffs (my favourite house ever!), they both wear spiky purple/pink hair and they both marry/date a werewolf (Lyorna's cousin was one and she ended up madly in love with him before GOF came out).

So, that's my story. I hope I didn't bore you too much with it.


End file.
